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Comment by xhrpost | Hacker News Reader

Everyone keeps saying that a crash is around the corner and the current price is unsustainable, been hearing it since $40/BTC, maybe earlier. I don't completely disagree, the question I keep pondering though is, if there is a big sustained crash coming, is it from $100 to $30, or $900 to $300?

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MtGox verification cue for people who want to buy more than $50k USD in a month is almost 10,000 long right now. You do the math.

I'm going to go with something closer to $300 to $150 at least. If there's a pop coming, it is a long ways off.

I got verified so I could fund my account without paying ridiculous fees, not so I could buy more than $50k USD in a month.

Are you referring to the Verified Status? That could also include people who are looking to withdraw $50k USD. Perhaps a lot of people got in early and are looking to cash out.

For US accounts you need to be verified just to get any money into the system - at least through wire transfer or Dwolla ( the most popular methods)

Hard to say, but my guess is that the price won't go under 15 USD no matter from which level it will fall. Also it's interesting that according to google trends, the current popularity of bitcoin still doesn't reach peak level from 2011[1], I would expect that current popularity is much higher compared to 2011. BTW using forecast feature, "google predicts" the crash any time now :)

[1] https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=bitcoin

Your lower bound is not low enough; it will be more like $150 to $5, or perhaps even lower.

If the crash will happen it will lead to a drop in trading volume, making prices unreliable. You will not be able to sell substantial quantities of Bitcoin without crashing the market further.

Been hearing it when it was trading at prices less than $ 1. Not sure what to think. What if it gets hacked ? What if the creator has a backdoor ?

The creator doesn't need a backdoor; the early adopters have gigantic stacks of BTC that has never been used. The appropriate concern is not that they have a backdoor but that they flood the market and make it crash.

What fraction of the currently mined coins is in these stacks?

Maybe half. People were mining away in 2009-2010 before there was much press coverage.

The exchange or Bitcoin itself? The code is open source and actively developed. Many people come over to bitcointalk asking about certain sections of the code. Many many eyes are looking at the main client source. Its highly unlikely there is a backdoor that has been missed.

I almost bought $500 worth of BTC back when they were trading for pennies. Now, who knows if they would have survived two hacks, or if I would have had the patience to hold on to them, but I sometimes wish I'd pulled the trigger.

Brilliant and subtle comment. I would recommend people to look at the idea of noumerosity. Just as an alternative perspective to the debate maybe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_cognition

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